#so did they miss the part where gatsby ends up floating dead in a pool and all the miserable deaths in wuthering heights#or did they miss that because there weren’t any chapters titled In Which The Sinners Are Punished For Their Errors#like. even if you require explicit moral instruction from literature it’s pretty hard to miss the comeuppance in those.

“What I assume my teachers were trying to teach me”

Huck Finn is about a white Southern boy who was raised to believe that freeing slaves is a sin that would send you directly to hell who forges a familial bond with a runaway slave and chooses to free him and thereby in his mind lose his salvation because he refuses to believe that his best friend and surrogate father is less of a man just because he’s black. Yes it features what we now consider racial slurs but this is a book written only 20 years after people were literally fighting to be allowed to keep other human beings as property, we cannot expect people from the 1880s to exactly conform with the social mores of 2020, and more to the point if we ourselves had been raised during that time period there’s very little doubt that we would also hold most if not all of the prevalent views of the time because actual history isn’t like period novels written now where the heroes are perfect 21st century social justice crusaders and the villains are all as racist and sexist as humanly possible. Change happens slowly and ignoring the radical statement that we’re all human beings that Twain wrote at a time when segregation and racial tensions were still hugely prevalent just because he wrote using the language of his time period is short-sighted and foolhardy to the highest degree.

I’m really kind of alarmed at the rise in the past few years of the “and we do condemn! wholeheartedly!” discourse around historical figures. it seems like people have somehow boomeranged between “morals were different in the past, therefore nobody in the past can ever be held accountable for ANY wrongs” to “morals are universal and timeless, and anything done wrong by today’s standards in the past is ABSOLUTELY unforgiveable” so completely, because social media 2.0 is profoundly allergic to nuance

please try this on for size:

there have always been, in past times as today, a range of people in every society, some of whom were even then fighting for a more just and compassionate accord with their fellow man and some of whom let their greeds and hatreds rule them to the worst allowable excesses. the goal of classics and history education is to teach you enough context to discern between the two, not only in the past but in the present

My mind just boggles at the “There’s Racism In That Book” argument.  Yes, there is racism in that book, because that book is ABOUT RACISM.  The message is that it is BAD. 

My high school English teacher, who was a viciously brilliant woman, used to say that when people banned Huck Finn they said it was about the language, but it was really the message they were trying to ban, the subversive deconstruction of (religious) authority and white supremacy.

Huckleberry Finn can actually be seen as a powerful case study in trying to do social justice when you have absolutely no tools for it, right down to vocabulary.  And in that respect, it’s a heroic tale, because Huck—with absolutely no good examples besides Jim, who he has been taught to see as subhuman, with no guidance, with everyone telling him that doing the right thing will literally damn him, with a vocabulary that’s full of hate speech—he turns around and says, “I’m not going to do it.  I’m not going to participate in this system.  If that means I go to Hell, so be it.  Going to Hell now.”

(I used to read a blogger who insisted that “All right, I’ll go to Hell,” from Huckleberry Finn is the most pure and perfect prayer in the canon of American literature.  Meaning, as I understand it, that the decision to do the right thing in the face of eternal damnation is the most holy decision one can make, and if God Himself is not proud of the poor mixed-up kid, then God Himself is not worth much more than a “Get thee behind me,” and the rest of us should be lining up to go to Hell too.  Worth noting that this person identified as an evangelical Christian, not because he was in line with what current American evangelicals believe, but because “they can change their name, I’m not changing mine.”  Interesting guy.  Sorry for the long parenthetical.)

Anyway, the point of Huck Finn, as far as I can tell, is that you can still choose to do good in utter darkness, with no guidance and no help and none of the right words.

And when you put it like that, it’s no wonder that a lot of people on Tumblr—people who prioritize words over every other form of social justice—find it threatening and hard to comprehend.

This is why it’s important to learn how to analyze media, a skill we are apparently losing.

While Huck Finn, for example, absolutely and obviously carries a moral message, not all stories do, because not every story is supposed to teach you something, nor will every story hold your hand and gently walk you to an easy conclusion.

I am so frustrated by the “if media portrays something, it’s saying it’s ok” and “if you enjoy a piece of medoa which portrays something negative, then you’re bad” mentality. Just pls. Stop. That’s not how stories work.

“I used to read a blogger who insisted that “All right, I’ll go to Hell,” from Huckleberry Finn is the most pure and perfect prayer in the canon of American literature. Meaning, as I understand it, that the decision to do the right thing in the face of eternal damnation is the most holy decision one can make, and if God Himself is not proud of the poor mixed-up kid, then God Himself is not worth much more than a “Get thee behind me,” and the rest of us should be lining up to go to Hell too.”

This right here.

If “you should be willing to sacrifice everything, including your soul, to protect your friends when everyone around wants your help hurting them” stops becoming a moral lesson because someone says the n-word, I think people are… a little TOO impressed with the power of hate speech.

Hate speech is a terrible thing, but it’s not witchcraft. It has the power we grant to it.

If you want to say “I know what the point was, but I couldn’t get past seeing that word typed out,” feel free, but please don’t say “typing that word out nullifies the point,” as that is not how anything works.

Honestly, YA and KidLit have gone fucking nuts.  I fled Twitter to get away from those assholes.

“OH, you like Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird??!!  Those racist books??!!”

I swear to god, YA & KidLit authors are more eager to burn books than some of the Right Wingers.

This may be the Hellsite, but there are people with critical thinking here.

seeing the photos from Webb up against photos from Hubble just makes me… I don’t even know like, wow! Look at that!

This applies to reading/writing fiction about your trauma too.

dragons are business majors

Even better: Middle earth has an entity that sets or keeps track of market values. A stock market, a blisteringly hot one.

apologist? not necessarily. explainer? perhaps. understander? intimately. enjoyer? greatly. sexualizer? frequently,

full transcription of the Concerning... "The Hoard" Tolkien letter from 1964 circa, as presented in manuscript at heritage auctions and never published before. the link to the manuscript's pictures is inside the doc, transcription is by yours truly with some help to interpret particularly scribbled words.

all in all this is a retelling of First Age events, however it presents some interesting insights into characters (especially Hurin, Thingol, Feanor) and also happens to contradict other texts... as usual. very fun if short read for people as unhinged about Tolkien as I am though.

I adore how Tolkien here says black on white that the ONE thing that the Valar need to grant pardon is being given the Silmaril. No great deed, no act of piety or compassion, just surrender and submission.

The most important argument is always that people all have the basic human right to control their organs. People have the right to smoke their lungs out, have casual sex, use drugs and alcohol, fall from planes for fun, have 0 children, have 42 children, and any other freedoms that they choose. Conservative men do not care about babies or family. They perceive women's sexual autonomy as an absolute threat against heteropatriarchal sociological dominance.

Therefore, when people say pro abortion, it is a slight difference which removes the crucial onus -- which is that women deserve complete unconditional autonomy. A girl should never be forced to give birth because her parents are pro life. A girl should never be forced to have an abortion because her parents are pro abortion. The only option that retains autonomous women's rights is pro choice.

to avoid writing an essay on someone else's post

To me the interesting thing about the Second Kinslaying is that while it was a war crime*, unlike the other two it wasn't a betrayal and it shouldn't have been a surprise.

[*: 'War crime' doesn't actually have an objective, universal, unchanging definition. A war crime in the commonly accepted modern definitions.]

The Noldor and the Lindar of Alqualondë were friends and no one expected things to go so badly. I think even Fëanor thought the worst case scenario was bullying the Lindar into giving up their ships, no bloodshed necessary. That was a betrayal and a surprise to everybody.

With the Third Kinslaying… It's more ambiguous, but the Fëanorians had been holding a defensive line for three decades and probably employing Sirion and/or Balar as 'behind the lines' for anyone who couldn't be on the front lines as well as supplies, because that's what was left. They weren't on speaking terms or working together exactly, but they were working in parallel. The Fëanorians had never attacked other Noldor before. And iirc Elwing didn't give a hard no to their letter — she stalled, said they had to negotiate with Eärendil and he wasn't there. So it was a surprise, and a betrayal of a (tacit and chilly) alliance.

But the Second Kinslaying—

Doriath and the Fëanorians were never allies. They were allies-in-law. And Thingol had solid reasons to refuse alliance — their attack on his brother's/his* people, their being generally rude and condescending-at-best, perhaps a not unreasonable perception of them as untrustworthy — but it was his refusal that meant they never became allies. (This got long, sorry.)

I must say I do not agree on the third kinslaying being any sort of betrayal o surprise. The only Noldor in Sirion there were From Gondolin, a city that, after the second kinslaying explicitly renounced any ties to the Feanorians. And Elwing is not the one to answer the letter, in fact in canon t is her AND the people both saying she has no authority to give the Silmaril. Unlike ther father, who undeniably is a ruler and answers on his own, she is not, by her own world and the one of her people, and her stalling is a de facto refusal. In fact her husband, who is the recognised ruler, might very likely be lost at sea as much as his parents. So: yes, I cannot see the attack being a surprise to the people of Sirion either. In fact they have a fleet of allied people ready to come to their aid. A fleet is not amassed in a few hours. They were expecting it. No, the third kinslaying is not a surprise.

And the second is not a war crime by modern definition either. There is a war crime being committed (the sons of Dior being left to die in a forest,which IS a war crime), but the war itself? By modern standard one might argue that starting a war is a war crime, but it is on shaky legs. The second kinslaying is a war between two people.

Not to take away from what is happening in the US, but in light of Amanda Knox' horrible, horrible tweet I thought I would share some information about Legge 194 and its actuation (or lack thereof). Legge 194 is the law that finally decriminalized abortion in Italy in May 1978. As can be expected, Catholic groups and the Catholic Church itself opposed the law at the time and continue to do so. To this day, Italian gynecologist are not legally bound to perform abortions as they can choose to be conscientious objectors (with some specific exceptions, obviously) – this should not constitute a big issue as the same law also dictates a fair allocation of non-objectors to every hospital, clinic, or structure so that the service can be guaranteed to every citizen who shall need it. Except the reality of it is very different. As of May 2022, there were a total of 31 hospitals/clinics where 100% of practicing gynecologists, anesthesiologists, and nurses are conscientious objectors, 50 hospitals/clinics where the percentage is over 90% and 80 where it is over 80% (source). The average of conscientious objectors among Italian doctors is 70% (source), making about 40% of Italian hospitals inadequate to adhere to national law (source). This means that there are entire areas of this country where it is virtually impossible or extremely difficult to access abortions (see map), to the point that Mario Puiatti (president of AIED) once quite famously said "if you want to get an abortion in Sicily, the best way to get it is to jump on a plane" (source). What this means is that, more than 40 years after its promulgation, Legge 194 is de facto not actualized in vast areas of the country. Moreover, instead of decreasing as one would expect, the number of conscientious objectors has increased by 10% in the last ten years (source).

Amanda Knox' tweet is in very poor taste not just because of That One reason but also because it is wildly inaccurate and dismissive of the struggle of Italian women and women who reside in Italy. But yeah, I am sure one sick joke in the form of a snappy tweet is more important than the plight of women worldwide if it helps you further your career and online persona, both built on the back of a fraudulent murder trial.

the thing is caranthir gets his ruddy complexion from nerdanel, so her calling him carnistir is in a way her naming him after herself. many ways to interpret that. complimentary? affectionate? reclaiming? claiming? something else? (nevermind my favoured headcanon where it's an overall darker skin colour, which is to say further layers) (and nevermind how otherwise distant from Nerdanel's entire personality Caranthir seems to be).

this isn’t going to be as coherent as it could be because headache, but i have honestly always felt (and this is partly from the actual canon but also partly from my interpretation) that in some ways Nerdanel and Caranthir are not distant at all in personality but too close. that thing where your own known flaws are the things that bother you most in others, you know? 

Nerdanel is “...firm of will, but more patient than Fëanor, desiring to understand minds rather than to master them...” per how the Silm describes her and people who know themselves impatient by nature often take the time to consciously attempt to develop that patience, whether it’s natural to them or not. i can easily see Nerdanel as a very fiery woman who has tried to temper herself, and sees the same thing in her fourth son. also, that “firm of will” comment can very easily translate right into “stubborn” when you see how she actually acts. stubborn and loyal, things Caranthir is also; but Nerdanel had loyalty to her own father and to the Valar too, and to her sons, where Caranthir’s loyalties are (nearly) all given to his father and brothers. 

we never particularly see Caranthir wishing to master minds, and despite all the commentary on him being harshest of the brethren, what we’re shown in the narrative that he actually does is form long-term and meaningful diplomatic/trade relationships with the dwarves, and even the interactions with the Haladin demonstrate a willingness to understand and see value in others -- fairly Nerdanel-y of him.

Homecoming. Feanor rises from the fire to welcome his firstborn home. Maedhros fulfills his oath.

it’s been almost a year since i first thought about this but i never got around to visualizing the concept

Technical notes (boring art stuff) below cut

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Sunset Fire Opal, The following is a Mexican fire opal. When illuminated just right, it looks like a sunset above the clouds. This picture was taken by Jeff Schultz. 

god grant me the serenity to ignore people who misread my blorbo, the courage to ignore people who misread my blorbo, the WISDOM to ignore people who misread my blorbo